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Is our modern technological world on the brink of collapse?

"A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
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tynamite
tynamite's avatar We're running out of helium that is being wasted on balloons. We're running out of rare earth's that are used to make the iPhone, and the crude oil will run out in 40 years. There's enough technology to support free renewable energy for all, but the government can't tax it so it'll never happen, so sadly we'll have to use nuclear fission energy which produces nuclear waste. The 20 years it took to build the Large Hadron Collider which cost 40 billion dollars, for the sole purpose of finding the Higgs Boson, should of instead of been used to create nuclear fusion energy that provides no nuclear waste.

The reason why the rich are getting a higher share of the wealth and why the rich and poor gap is increasing, is because the poor are buying more of the rich people's stuff as they have more spending power. It's only natural that when the poor have more money to spend, the rich will get richer. The increasing rich and poor gap is due to the poor getting richer, not the poor getting poorer.

Karl Marx predicted that Capitalism would fall to its knees due to an inequal wealth distribution and increased poverty. The whole point of capitalism is to maximise profits for shareholders and CEOs whilst increasing prices and decrease wages for ordinary citizens. Two-hundred years ago there was no unemployment, and now in some developed Western countries there is 17% unemployment. Oxfam showed that 85 people own as much money as 3.5 billion people in their Working for the Few publication, half the world.
Oxfam: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world
World's 85 richest individuals have as much money as 3.5billion poorest people PUT TOGETHER
Oxfam: 85 richest people on earth have as much money as half the world's population
85 people are richer than 3.5bn people now –Oxfam

So are the poor actually getting poorer? So will there be a revolution like Russell Brand says there should?

Research has shown that when food prices reach a certain threshold it causes riots, so poverty can cause social unrest or discourse, but most likely it doesn't. In China where poor people working for a pittance in the Foxconn factories who make iPhones, despite Steve Jobs being a billionaire and Apple making billions of dollars, Chinese Foxconn workers are committing suicide so they've put nets outside the windows. Karl Marx would of argued that the richer a company gets, the more the workers are exploited, as the bigger the profits, the bigger the inequality, and the bigger Apple's profits, the more Foxconn workers commit suicide, due to pitiful work conditions and wages.

Chinese Foxconn workers commiting so much suicide due to terrible working conditions and earning a pittance, that there are nets outside the windows to stop people from jumping out them, despite Apple making billions of dollars, is one of the grim perils of Capitalism and people being exploited. However on the flip side, it is Capitalism that is raising the workers out of poverty. Without Capitalism, the Chinese workers would be much poorer due to having no factories to work for.

In Singapore many people commit suicide and die of starvation and capital punishment due to poverty, and there are no protests because of this, so there is no social unrest, only discourse. But mostly nothing happens just like in India and Africa where many people live in shacks, working in sweatshops or in mines, because they know there is no alternative. Singapore is a good example of "state capitalism", just like "state communism" is pure communism enforced by the state, "state capitalism", is pure capitalism enforced by the state, except there's a government so it's not fully capitalist like anarcho-capitalism (where you pay Rights Enforcement Agencies to enforce laws). In Singapore there is no minimum wage, wages are paid months in advance to contractually stop people from finding other jobs (I call this slavery), and there are no workers rights to strike or form unions. Singapore is one country lower on the Big Mac Index than the United Kingdom is, so the cost of living is around about the same. However, most people who work in Singapore receive less than the minimum wage in Britain, and people on disability payments in Britain, receive more money than workers in Singapore. Anyone with a brain will know this is not right. Well that is exactly the sort of system Karl Marx predicted, where workers have no minimum wage, no rights to form unions or strikes, no rights for an employment tribunal, who are contractually obliged to work for months in advance. In Singapore there is a two tier system where those who can't afford to go to university, are born poor and die poor. Sporean workers are being exploited as they receive pitiful wages from their employers, but American and British people, I say they're not being exploited. Imagine if every country was like Singapore, or like India where poor people live in shacks and shit in the streets who live just across the road to people in fancy houses and flashy cars, or China where poor people live in fields and the Chinese government blocked the Bloomberg site for publishing articles on ______'s wealth (because they know most the country is poor). Well that's exactly what Karl Marx predicted capitalism would cause around the world.

Sweatshops in India are one of the grim perils of Capitalism exploiting people, but Communism would of only let these people be in more poverty. Capitalism is the only economic system that allows the poor to escape poverty, so the more capitalism develops, the less poverty there is. Karl Marx neglected this, as he thought Capitalism would cause more poverty, more inequality, and less wages.

If you look at the developed democratic first world countries and the poor developing countries, you will find that the poor have actually gotten richer. Products have gotten cheaper, you can buy the same things as you did before with
In India, China and Singapore, the wealth is stratified, because the poor live in despicable conditions compared to the rich, but in Britain and America, the wealth is not stratified. Karl Marx predicted it would be stratified in every country in the world. Well he was wrong. (There was no way he could have predicted Socialism.)

And guess what? 17% of people in Singapore are millionaires, compared to 0.00941841299% of people in Britain. Well which country would you rather live in? Which country do you think the average person like yourself will be richer in? The one with welfare, free healthcare and a guaranteed pension where nobody lives on less than £4 a day I suppose.

Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system to date, and Capitalism in Western countries has and still is routinely making the poor richer. Not much can be said about India, China and Singapore though. If you lived in those countries, you would hate Capitalism.

This video shows that the poor are getting richer. If you look back at how things have progressed in the past 100 or 200 years, you'll see that the poor have gotten richer.



And this video shows that the cost of living has fallen over the past 100 years.


Update

Global warming is something that will cause our demise, due to the sea level rising. Venice in Italy is underwater and people use boats to get across the roads and pavements. You can watch this on VICE on HBO S01E03 and HBO S02E03 from The Pirate Bay.


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tynamite
tynamite's avatar

Daniel

Oil running out in 40 years. We have been told this for decades. It refers to proven reserves, and ignores new discoveries, improvements in extraction (such as fracking) as well as market prices making more deposits (oil sand) viable. It's finite, but the 30-50 years is an old lie.
Metals are a concern, but recyclable to some extent.
Singapore, as "state capitalism" is far better than the communist versions. However, "state capitalism"'is a contradiction on terms
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tynamite
tynamite's avatar

Me

The only reason why the oil hasn't ran out when people predicted it would, is because people have found new oil reserves that they didn't know existed. Maybe the oil won't run out in 40 years because maybe they'll find new oil reserves, but that is not the point. The oil reserves will run out some day.

The whole point of capitalism is to exploit workers by getting rich off other people's labour. It is based on inequality, continually making more money, raising prices and devaluing labour. If you cannot advance your technology or expand your market, the only way you can make more money as a business is to increase prices or pay workers less.

If I could have thought of a better term than "state capitalism", I would of used it.
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tynamite
tynamite's avatar

Daniel

No, capitalism is freedom to produce and trade. All alternatives are based in destroying freedom. Some basic rules and regulations take care of most expiration concerns. Nations that abandon capitalism in some form, generally starve.
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tynamite
tynamite's avatar

Me

Nations that abandon capitalism generally starve because they abolish private property and remove the incentive to be educated or work hard, which is why the Soviet Union failed.

However capitalism is not without its flaws. Many people in the developing world are not earning decent wages.
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tynamite
tynamite's avatar

Daniel

That I cannot argue with.
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What's an assertion, and what should I type in?

Compesh is a question and answer (and debate) website, so before you make a debate, you better learn what an assertion is. I suppose you already know what a question is, and that you've typed it in the box. ;)

An assertion, is basically a statement you can make, that is either true or false.

Richer people have better health.

The question for that would be, Do richer people have better health?

And don't forget to make your assertion, match your question.

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